


Crossing Barriers

by jaekayelle



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-26
Updated: 2003-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14468010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekayelle/pseuds/jaekayelle
Summary: Mal and Zoe redefine their relationship.





	Crossing Barriers

 

Crossing Barriers

## Crossing Barriers

### by Jae Kayelle

The door swung shut with deafening finality. 

I nearly cried in relief. He was still alive. I was so certain he had been killed while I was gone. He sat up on the narrow cot and stared back at me as if seeing some sort of apparition. 

"Zoe?" his voice cracked making three syllables out of my name. I tried to make it across the small cell to him. My legs were shaky at best but they carried me a few steps before giving out. He caught me before I hit the floor. 

Feeling his arms around my back supporting me was as welcome as a bath right then. Funny thing to compare it to, but all I wanted was to be safe at home, and then take a long hot bath to scrub off the grime and sweat and stink of months of captivity. We were allowed to keep our own clothing, now torn in places, but it was the only clothing we had. My shirt was a bit ripe, to say the least. He didn't smell too good, either. 

"Are you all right?" he asked, helping me to sit on the cot and get marginally comfortable before he sat down beside me. 

"I'm alive," I said. 

We had been held here - wherever here was - together more often than not, but our captors had dragged me out of our cell days ago. Two of them had stayed behind with him and, as the door had closed behind me, the sounds of his screams had followed me out. 

I wonder if he had heard mine. 

"Me too," he said, and managed a crooked grin that I knew was solely for my benefit. 

I gingerly leaned back against the wall, feeling every one of the fresh bruises under my skin. A hiss of pain escaped when I made contact with the cold brick behind me. My control was not as good as it used to be. I couldn't hide anything from him anymore anyway. He uttered a little grunt when he sat back and we turned toward each other, sharing an almost-smile. I really didn't see the humour in much at that point but it sure felt good to be back with him. 

Mal had become the centre of my world since our capture. Many days would go by in which he was all the human contact I had, and I was his. We had experienced hard times together during the war but nothing like this. Being tortured and suffering the isolation of being alone together and sometimes apart with no pattern to the hows or whens was wearing on my nerves. 

I called him Mal instead of "sir" because sharing a five by five cell with no privacy tended to fray at preconceptions and eliminate modesty. The narrow cot didn't leave much room literally or emotionally, either. At first we took turns sleeping on it, but after a while we extended our personal comfort zones and slept on it together. Many days I woke up to find his erection poking me in the buttocks while he slept on, his arms wrapped around me and his chin resting on my shoulder, and his breath warm on my neck. I don't know when I began enjoying these sensations. One morning I simply lay there letting his body heat seep into my aching bones and thought that it felt good. I especially liked his arousal pressing against me. It made me feel like I was still alive. It was nothing momentous, just a plain, simple truth. The "sirs" and "Captains" still slipped out now and then but not so much anymore. 

I looked over at him, studying his face. He was exhausted. They were wearing him down, too. I thought he would hold up better and longer than I did but didn't know what they had done to him this last session. His control was slipping too. He tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. I reached over and grasped his hand. He tightened his fingers around mine and we sat like that for a long while. 

Still gazing steadily at him I brought our hands up and brushed my lips over the backs of his battered knuckles. He jerked as if I'd touched him with a live wire and tried to pull his hand free. I hung on. 

"Zoe! What the hell are you doing?" 

"Offering comfort...taking comfort," I explained. "I know you want to. I feel it every morning." 

It took him a moment to figure out what I was talking about. Previously we had both always pretended his hard-ons didn't exist. I hoped he took care of those matters whenever I was dragged out of our cell. 

"It's a guy thing. You know that," he said, flushing with embarrassment. Mal had always had an endearing and oddly old-fashioned sense of what men and women were all about. Not once in the years we had known each other had he knowingly touched me in a sexual manner. After he had been freed from Niska's clutches he had staged a little show for Wash where Mal and I pretended to be attracted to one another. The act had been totally devoid of any fireworks whatsoever. Wash had promptly hauled me off to our quarters and made long, slow, sweet love to me. 

Wash. My heart cracked again. 

"What about Wash?" he asked somewhat predictably. 

"Dead." 

"Zoe..." 

"You know it's a fact. We both saw him die." 

"We saw him fall." 

"With a gunshot wound to the chest right here." I opened my shirt a little and placed Mal's hand over my heart. I had memorized the exact spot the bullet had entered my husband's body. 

We also saw the explosion that killed Serenity and, even through my tears of disbelief at losing Wash, I had registered Mal's reaction when his ship blew up taking our other friends with her. 

Mal looked at my chest under his fingers and then lifted his gaze to my eyes, searching for something. I held still. Maybe my control wasn't completely gone. 

"Zoe," he whispered. 

"Please, Mal. I need this and I know you do, too. There's nothing to stop us. We could die tomorrow. I don't want to die without experiencing love one last time." 

"Love?" 

"Yes. Maybe it won't be the love of two people entering into a committed relationship..." 

"I can't think of two other people present who are more committed to each other than you and I," he interrupted. 

I couldn't speak. That was who we were, all right. 

"But to have...to make...to have sex," he finally settled on one. "That's different. You and I have never," he faltered again. 

"No. We have never," I agreed. "Doesn't mean we can't ever. It's about need, Mal. I need it. You need it. I want to feel human again. I want to feel like a woman again." 

I released his hand and dropped mine onto his leg, lightly tracing his inseam to his knee and back to where I'd started. I looked up to find his eyes on me, not my hand. I couldn't read him then. He was very good at hiding his feelings but I had always been able to see past his walls. Not this time. Shutters dropped over his soul. Disappointed more than I thought possible, I started to get up. 

He reached out and grabbed my arm, holding me in place. I turned to him intending to demand that he let me go. If he didn't want to have sex with me I wasn't going to push for it. I wouldn't do that to either of us. 

"Zoe, I'm not sure I can give you what you need," he paused to stare hard into my eyes, the blue of his almost vanished behind his huge pupils. Then he slipped his hand back into mine. "But I'm willing to try." 

That was big of him. A smile ghosted over my lips. I could feel it and tried to take it back. 

Mal noticed and said, "You're probably thinking, what man doesn't want sex?" 

I shrugged nonchalantly even though I agreed with him. "Most do if it's offered." 

He laughed then, a full-throated laugh that I had never heard from him before. Must have been the tension that made him do it. For one awful moment I feared that he was going to fall over the edge into hysteria. We still hadn't discussed what had been done to him while we were separated. I didn't think he was that close to losing it but his ongoing mirth was beginning to worry me. 

I tucked one leg under me, turned to him and, holding his head still, I kissed him. He froze. I froze. It was weird. I'd been thinking about this a lot lately, but now that I'd crossed a line I wasn't so sure this was the right thing to do. 

Then Mal kissed me back. Hesitant best describes it but his lips moved gently against mine. It suddenly felt good, surprisingly good. It was a few years since I had kissed a man who wasn't my late husband. Mal flicked the tip of his tongue over my lips. I gasped at the rush of desire that surged through me. Heat swept over and under my skin, pooling in my centre. I clutched at Mal's arms holding him to me, not letting him move away. He lifted his hands to cup my face and, when I opened to him, he deepened the kiss making it last what felt like minutes. 

Slowly he pushed me down to lie on the bed and followed me down, covering my body with his. We stretched out and got comfortable, got to know each other in ways so new to our relationship that it redefined us. His hands skimmed restlessly over my body. It was like he didn't know where to touch me next but wanted to touch me everywhere all at once. I slid my fingers into his hair encountering a mat or two where the strands had twisted, and feeling the oiliness between my fingers. Lord knows what he would find in mine if he did any exploring. I tried to put aside our lack of personal hygiene. It didn't make either of us seem sexy. 

With infinite care Mal parted me from my clothing. By the time he had me revealed to his eyes I was quivering with anticipation and apprehension. What did he see? My skin was discoloured more than not with bruises from numerous beatings. Over the months I'd been roughed up so often that the marks must have stopped healing. I did not want to look in his eyes and see his disgust or his anger, but he placed two fingers under my chin and tipped my head so that I had no choice but to look at him. 

His gaze was filled only with desire. 

"Zoe. So beautiful." 

His words did much to allay my fears. Worrying my lip I said, "I want to see you." 

He grimaced but sat up and removed his clothes. When he was done I ran my fingers across his chest, tracing the raised welts from his latest session with our captors. Bastards. Mal had cuts on top of slices on top of slashes, none of them deep and most closing up. The old ones had scabbed over and would leave him with some showy scars. No sign of infection, which was a miracle considering our surroundings. I'd seen his bare chest a time or two before and he was a handsome well built man, but now his ribs showed and his skin had lost its healthy golden glow. Knowing I also looked sickly did not make me feel any better for either of us. 

"Ain't we a pair?" I said. 

He chuckled. "I know my chances for winning a beauty contest are gone." 

I drew my forefinger down the side of his nose, once so straight and imperial but now it had a break across the bridge. 

"I don't know," I replied, "could be you'd at least win Miss Congeniality." 

He grinned and buried his face against my neck, his shoulders shaking with laughter. This time I could tell he was far from the edge so I wrapped my arms around him and stroked his shoulders, once more enjoying the feel of a big strong man in my embrace. 

I gave myself permission to compare him to my dear departed husband. It couldn't hurt Wash now. Nothing could. Mal was different than Wash, more muscular and broader through the chest and shoulders. His hips were leaner - gunfighter's hips I liked to call them. He could strap on a holster and carry it like it was a part of him. Wash would have looked ridiculous wearing a pistol. He could shoot one, damn straight too, but a gun in a holster would have made him look like a kid playing cowboy. My Wash had been all man but his masculinity came from his personality more than his body -- not that his body had been at all feminine. With Mal it was an even balance of power and grace all the way around. 

Mal pulled his head out of my rat's nest of curls and patted the mess down while he studied my face. He still couldn't believe we were doing this, lying naked in each other's arms. I could read it in his expression. He was totally open to me now. I'd never before been one to want to get into Malcolm Reynolds head, but I already knew him as well as I knew myself. The difference now was that he let me see him instead of making me work for it. 

"You okay?" he asked. 

I answered with confidence. "Yes." 

"Should we...can we do more now?" 

"If we don't I may have to hurt you," I told him. 

Truth was that the few caresses and kisses had me so fired up I was burning from the inside out. He wasn't exactly uninterested either. His erection was trapped between us and felt like a hot poker against my thigh. I reached down and stroked it. Mal gasped at the contact. I gripped the shaft and ran my thumb over the head, and then rubbed it up and down the vein on the underside. Mal squirmed and grabbed my wrist to stop me. 

"I normally have a lot of staying power, Zoe, but if you keep doing that I ain't gonna last. It's been so long..." He was breathing hard. 

"Okay." I released him. As soon as I did he reached for me and replaced my hand on his hot length. "I thought you wanted me to stop." 

"Just slow it down a bit while I," he slid his hand down my stomach and lower, "help you catch up." 

I threw my head back the instant he touched me between my legs, as it felt like being electrocuted. His fingers explored individually. One of them found my access and was joined by another. His other hand cupped my breast and thumbed my nipple into a hard, aching peak, and then he put his mouth there. His hands wandered a while trailing fire across my skin, until I was definitely caught up with him. Could be I raced past him. 

I thrashed under him making noises I almost didn't recognize, begging for more. My chest heaved, my hands clutched at him; I might have left new marks on him but he was relentless with his stroking and sucking and licking. Then a wave crashed over me, liquefying my entire body, and I screamed. 

He sat up gathering me into his arms and rocked me until I stopped shaking like a sapling in a high wind. I clung to him sobbing into his shoulder. Mal made sounds that I supposed were intended to be soothing. They worked for the most part. Finally he pushed me away a little and searched my face. He looked scared as hell. 

"Did I hurt you?" 

I gulped in some air and felt the oxygen work a bit of magic. 

"No. It's been so long...numb... I didn't think I could feel anything ever again. When Wash died I did, too." 

Mal petted my hair and my cheek, looking like he was afraid I was broken. "You sounded alive to me just now," he said uncertainly. 

Quickly regaining my equilibrium, I managed a tiny chuckle. 

"Just wait. This next one should be a doozy." At his puzzled look I elaborated, "You get a turn, too." 

"Oh. I didn't think we... that is, that I should...you know." 

I stopped his babbling with a lingering kiss. "It'll feel good, Mal. Do you wonders." 

Still looking like he thought that sex was an instrument of destruction he sat back. "I'm okay." 

I sent a pointed glance down at his lap. He was so hard it had to hurt. His penis was crying for relief - literally. Some clear seminal tears were leaking out of it. 

"I want us to join, to be complete. We're in this together - this whole mess and this intimacy we've forged. Now," I lay back and held out my arms to him, "come to me. Come for me." 

He went to me willingly then, sliding into my embrace and then into my body with the same ease. We loved well and we loved hard. It's funny, finding out in such a long roundabout way how well suited we were for each other. We had long been in balance, harmonizing without even trying, but now we found a fit that completed us. It filled in the missing pieces. I almost started to laugh at how I was romanticizing it. I hadn't felt that way since I realized I was in love with Wash. 

Now that gave me pause. Was I falling in love with Mal or was I merely projecting months of terror into a thing I could deal with better? 

Mal lifted his head from my breast and gazed down at me with concern. 

"Zoe? Something wrong?" 

I smiled and drew him back down. I could deal with whatever it was. 

"Not a thing." 

# 

Our first time had more than enough fireworks. I figured out later that I wasn't in love with Mal, not then, but the act of lovemaking had sent my emotions flying all over the place. It was a long time before I came down from my high. Mal expressed his bewilderment at dealing with a different Zoe Warren than he was familiar with by fussing over me and making confused attempts at calming me down. It took several assurances before he believed me when I said I was fine. 

It was his orgasm that sent me over the edge. He looked so intense when he came, thrusting into me so hard he moved us up the bed so that the scratchy blanket bunched up under my back. At the exact moment of his climax I felt a dam break deep inside me. I made him come like that. It was because I clenched around him, squeezing my muscles, trapping him between my legs, that he poured his essence into me. I had never seen Mal look so wild and abandoned and free from his spiritual burdens, and it was because he made love with me. He had long been in terrible emotional pain and for a while at least he was liberated. No wonder my hormones overloaded. 

More weeks passed. Our captors continued to treat us like punching bags, never demanding anything from us, always doing their level best to break us. It never happened. Together we were stronger than they would ever be. 

# 

One night Mal and I lay wound together lazily exploring each other's nooks and crannies. He had just started a game of invisible Xs and Os on my stomach when we heard a commotion out in the hall. As far as we knew our physical relationship was still a secret so we scrambled to pull on clothes. If they caught us together they might separate us. On the other hand, they probably thought we were lovers long before the fact. To be safe we dressed and moved apart. 

The sound of the lock being disengaged drew our eyes to it. The door swung open and a stranger carrying a big gun stepped through. He looked at us like he was surprised to see us. 

"Hoy there! Who are you two?" 

"Malcolm Reynolds," Mal answered and nodded at me. "That's Zoe." 

"Well, you're not who we were looking for but if you want to come with us, you're welcome." 

"Who are you?" I asked. 

"Oh," he grinned sheepishly, his white teeth almost too bright in his dark-skinned face, and then stepped forward with his hand out. "I'm Jake Givens, freelance weapons expert." 

"You're a gun-for-hire," Mal clarified trading a look with me. Givens could be our kind of people or not. 

"Well, yeah. You could say that. Vicker snatched some of my men. Took us a month of Sundays to find where he'd hidden them. Weird sonuvabitch, Vicker is. Has a mean streak a mile wide." Givens paused to give us a closer look. "Could be you two already know about that." 

Mal shoved his hands through his hair. "We do that for a fact, but we didn't know his name until now." 

Something approaching sympathy passed through Givens eyes. "Well, come along then, if you like." 

"We like!" Mal and I both said simultaneously. We had nothing to take with us except our dignity so we followed Givens, his team, and his stunned, rescued people out. 

He unlocked cell doors as he went. He found only one more of his men, who glanced at us questioningly but was only too willing to accept our presence as long as he could leave the prison. Givens offered a hurried explanation after the backslapping was done and we were off again. 

We heard shooting up ahead so we pressed ourselves against the walls. 

"Got a couple of guns to spare?" Mal asked. "Zoe and me are good shots." 

"Yeah, mate. Here." Givens pulled a pair of pistols from his belt and handed them over. 

It felt like heaven to heft its weight in my palm, the cold metal against my skin was nearly as welcome as one of Mal's caresses. Then the men began a quick lope down the hallway and I went with them. 

We found Vicker trying to escape in a shuttle and speedily put an end to that. Givens splattered the man's brains across the view port. Mal grumbled about that, and I wished I could have been the one to kill Vicker or tie him to some stakes and pull him apart at the seams. Several of Givens' men who had also been held captive did a lot of yelling along those lines. The main thing was Vicker was dead and we were free. I turned to Mal and our eyes met in understanding. 

We were free. 

# 

Givens dropped us off on Medea, a planet we'd visited with Serenity's crew once before. It was as close to home as we had been in over seven months. It was a little strange having the freedom to walk in the sun, or make love on a soft bed in the room we rented over one of the bars. Best of all I could take a bath whenever I wanted and I did often, sometimes with Mal but mostly alone. 

"You're going to prune up," he commented one day as he came into the bathroom and sat on the floor next to the tub. I was no longer self-conscious about my battered body. That morning we had both been to a doctor who diagnosed us with multiple contusions and a few cracked bones but no lasting damage. My bruises were already fading to a lovely greenish purple that went well with what Mal called my cream-in-coffee skin colour. I was actually looking forward to seeing how I looked in yellow when they healed even more. Mal's injuries were only slightly more severe, but true to form he behaved as if there was nothing wrong, and looked better every day. He dangled a hand into the tub and flicked droplets of water at me. I splashed him back. He stood up and splashed harder. Before it got into a real water fight I reached for a double fistful of his shirt and pulled him into the tub with me. 

When he surfaced, sputtering, he grinned devilishly and then proceeded to kiss my breath away. Stripping off soggy clothes while in the tub isn't easy, but he did it with my help and soon about a quarter of the bathwater was on the floor as we thrust together for the sheer joy of it. I came with a shriek of laughter and Mal had this big, stupid grin on his face as he pumped into me. We got out, towelled off and fell into bed together. We slept until well past dawn. 

# 

We decided to take the time to heal before we set out looking for work, before we tried to build a life again. We decided if we had done it once, we could do it again. Truth to tell I was relieved when Mal agreed to wait. Even though he was frequently playful and loving with me I could tell it was becoming more and more an act to pretend that he was truly whole. Losing our friends - and my husband -- all at once the way we had should have killed us, too. Perhaps by being forced to survive Vicker's brand of hell we had been made stronger. Both of us were stubborn cusses and it took a lot to break us. For a fact, neither of us had broken despite the torture we had undergone. Now we were free and whole. That should count for a lot, but Mal carried his emotions as a heavy load and it was weighing him down. I figured a longer vacation from real life could only help him heal. 

In an effort to get him out of his head I made love to him at every opportunity and frequently distracted him as best I could. He was all I had and it terrified me to think that I might lose him, too, one day to his inner demons. He told me he knew what I was doing but he put up with it good-naturedly. Despite the shadows that darkened his mind, he was still growing emotionally and he often gazed at me with something as close to love as I had ever seen from him. Neither of us was particularly vocal with our introspections, preferring to keep things like that to ourselves but we learned to communicate non-verbally pretty well. It suited us. 

One sunny morning I noticed his expression grow darker with his thoughts, so I grabbed him by the hand and cajoled him into going for a walk with me until he gave in out of self-defence. Out on the street I window-shopped; deliberately prattling on nonsensically about pretty fripperies until he light-heartedly begged me to stop. I kept on for a bit and he seized me around the waist from behind, spinning me around so that my legs left the ground while he nuzzled my neck. I yelped and laughed, wriggling in his arms until he nearly dropped me. He cackled evilly making me laugh harder. I twisted around and planted a big wet smooch on his lips. He smiled against my mouth and crushed me to him, kissing back with a passion that took my breath away. When we parted he was looking at me like I was the most precious thing in the 'verse and my heart pounded heavily with the love I felt for him. 

"Zoe! Mal!" 

We turned. 

My previously dead husband stood a few yards away in the middle of the street. A pace or two behind him were Jayne, Book and Kaylee all looking pole-axed. 

"Wash?" It was impossible. Wash had died. 

In confusion I looked to Mal for answers, as my brain was suddenly too sluggish to process the information it was receiving. His eyes were wide, pupils huge with surprise and something else that I, in my present state, could not identify. He let me go and stepped back to just within arm's reach. 

While Wash tore over to us and swept me into his arms, I heard Jayne let out a whoop and saw him run forward to pound Mal on the back. Kaylee elbowed him out of the way and flung herself into Mal's arms while Book was grinning like three kinds of fool and shaking Mal's hand until it very nearly fell off. Then all three of them pushed Wash out of the way and gathered me into the centre of a group hug. Over someone's shoulder I saw Mal's face drain of colour. His mind was obviously working much faster than mine as he pieced together the scene surrounding us. And then Wash had me all to himself again. 

I stared at his white skin and his reddish blond hair and the familiar, beautiful-ugly patterned shirt. I took in his broad, watery grin, and red eyes, and I started to bawl. Damn near throttling him in an effort to hug the stuffing out of him, I clung and wept and carried on with truly uncharacteristic hysteria. Wash was alive! 

# 

We were swept off to Serenity where we were reunited with Simon, River and Inara. Everyone was still alive. The ship lived. We were home again. 

Simon, of course, insisted on checking us out and pronounced the same diagnosis the other doctor had. It took a lot of piecing together, but we finally sussed out that on the day of our separation from the others Mal and I had been subjected to some well-planned sleight of hand by Vicker. The man had had a nasty streak and a knack of exploiting confusion. Some well-timed and strategically placed blasts from a nearby mine and we "saw" Serenity blow up. As for Wash, he had been shot but Simon hadn't wasted his expensive medical school education. He had saved my husband's life but a long convalescence had forced them into lying low and prevented them from searching for us until he could fly the ship. By the time they could begin to look the trail was cold and they thought we were dead. There had been so much heartbreak and all because of one man. Not for the last time I wished I could have made Vicker suffer. 

We all talked long into the night. Well, the rest of us talked but Mal got quieter as the hours wore on. When Kaylee and Simon each asked if he was all right he assured them he was, and even managed a playful hug for Kaylee and some teasingly fond remarks directed at Simon. After a while everyone headed off to bed. I hung back wanting to be with Mal, torn between brand new exciting love and the easy comfort of the commitment I had made to my husband. Wash gazed longingly at me, patiently waiting. I stared at Mal who lifted his head as if it weighed a ton and gave me a sad smile that told me it was over between us, making the decision for us both. 

The scars on my heart threatened to open but I went with my husband to our bed. One last glance backwards showed me Mal bravely and stoically accepting how it had to be. Just before I turned to face the long hallway and my future I saw some tiny cracks form in his faade. Then he called on his very strong and formidable will, and the Malcolm Reynolds who had walked out of Serenity Valley all those years ago stood up from the table and headed for the bridge - alone. 

# end

[](Green%20Eyes)


End file.
